Article and Photography by Jim Chapin
Some SXSW keynotes are scripted, the speaker sticking to a rigid outline of talking points. Many are relaxed conversations but usually, stay on topic. Then there is there was the Music Keynote with Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Michael “Mike D” Diamond, 2/3 of the notorious hip hop group from New York City known as the Beastie Boys. (The third member, Adam “MCA” Yauch died of cancer in 2012 at the age of 47.)
Much like the group’s music, the panel was a free-form party right from the start. The two continually interrupted each other with inside jokes, and went off on everything from the planned dog-act that they wanted to precede their talk to Mike D’s Cam’ron socks and New York group Dipset (that only one person in the audience seemed to know) to their Austin food preference of Lucy’s Fried Chicken over the Texas barbecue they had last time they were in the city.
As moderator Nathan Brackett of Amazon Music tried to reign in the conversation and get on track with the discussion, he noted that the group was “Infamous in media circles for not being the most fact-based interview.” Mike D summed it up best by exclaiming that it wasn’t true. They just “had a different relationship with reality” than most journalists who interviewed them.
Once things settled down a bit, the two recounted their illustrious career and their recently released New York Times Best Selling memoir “Beastie Boys Book” which features personal stories and tales from the road.
Mike D said the book about the community around the band which spreads far wider than the three band members. “It’s New York City, it’s all of our friends, It’s us, it’s the music we listen to, it’s the fart jokes, it’s everything,” he said.
A big part of the book involves Yauch and a big part of writing the book was to show the world who he was. Ad-Rock noted that Yauch was the innovator in the group, recognizing new technology and trends before anyone else. When Yauch wanted to learn Buddhism he traveled to Nepal and studied with the Dalai Lama. It was these kinds of experiences that Yauch had that ultimately helped the band’s writing.
“He’d always been interested in the world beyond what we were. It wasn’t just an interest in the world, he had an interest in the people who lived in the world,” Diamond said. “He related to them, and he’d bring that back into the studio. That’s how we grew as a band and as friends because we had this place to come back together and put what we learned to use.”
Although they have ceased to perform as a band since Yauch’s passing, the two did announce that the Beastie Boys aren’t quite finished. They are scheduled to play shows in New York City and Philadelphia in April, which will be filmed and directed by Spike Jonze.
 
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